Mustangs, Wildcats medal at Burlington

BURLINGTON — With 19 schools competing, points and medals were at a premium in Tuesday’s Burlington High Invitational track meet.
Iola High’s Mustangs had to work through limited ranks because of injuries and illnesses. They earned five medals and scored 36 points for eighth place.
Yates Center High’s four boys had three medal placings in seven events.
“This meet is highly competitive and our kids did well,” said Dan Berg, Yates Center coach. “I’m proud of our efforts and the im-provements we’ve had all year.”
Iola’s top performance of the day was in the pole vault. Drew Shepherd claimed the gold medal with a vault of 11 feet.
The Mustangs’ Charles Apt captured the silver medal in the javelin with a throw of 166 feet. Ralph Shafer placed fourth at 151’10”.
Yates Center’s C.J. Stiffler just missed a medal, placing seventh with a distance of 130’10” in the javelin. Berg said Stiffler has im-proved immensely in the throwing events this season.
Iola’s Kyle Heffern finished third in the discus with a throw of 121’5”.
On the track, the Mustangs had a lot of missing personnel.
“We competed without Roman Yocham and Marcus Sullivan, who were sick or injured,” said Marvin Smith, Iola head coach.
“Tyler Powelson and Christian Kauth both competed early in the meet but dropped out because of illness.”
Mikal Bossell turned in a fifth-place medal finish in the 400-meter dash for Iola. He ran the race in 53.9 seconds. Christian Kauth was eighth in the 800-meter run in 2 minutes, 12.6 seconds.
Iola’s 4×800-meter relay team of C. Kauth, Jacob Harrison, Apt and Powelson was seventh in 8:59.4.  Bossell, Apt, Harrison and Adam Kauth combined for seventh in the 4×400-meter relay in 3:46.3.
Smith said because Iola had to leave two freshmen at home because of meet limitations, “we ran Kyle Heffern, Ralph Shafer, Adam Kauth and Stephen McDonald in the 4×100 relay race.”
Yates Center’s Sam Aguirre turned in personal bests in earning third-place medals in both hurdle races. Aguirre ran 16.4 seconds in the 110-meter high hurdles. Also in the high hurdle final was Iola’s Adam Kauth, but he had a false start and was out of the race.
Aguirre took third in the 300-meter intermediate hurdles in 43.1 seconds.
David VanHoose picked up the fourth-place medal in the 200-meter dash in 23.7 seconds. He ran seventh in the 100-meter dash in 11.9 seconds.
Iola’s junior varsity competes in Thursday’s Crest High Invitational in Iola. The Mustang varsity goes to Chanute Friday.
Yates Center competes at Cherryvale Thursday.